


Who Cares?

by whalehuntingboyfriends



Category: Lazer Team (2015)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 15:03:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalehuntingboyfriends/pseuds/whalehuntingboyfriends
Summary: “No one cares about Woody, anyway! I’m serious!”
(Prompt: "Things you said that I wasn't meant to hear.")





	

**Author's Note:**

> A short one this week because I've been busy! <3
> 
> Jumping on the 'insecure Woody fics' bandwagon... I had to do at least one this challenge :P

Woody is much more careful nowadays.

Before the Helmet, before all this, he never thought twice about putting himself in danger. Whether it was walking through the football field with guys twice his size crashing into each other around him and balls flying through the air with enough force to knock someone out, or setting off a giant-ass firework in a field of very flammable grass…

If someone told him to do something, he did it, heedless of what might happen. He never minded getting hurt, even. After all, most pain was only temporary. Maybe, he thinks sometimes, with a flash of self-deprecation, back then he was just too stupid to care.

But nowadays…

Nowadays he dreams of statistics, now he can’t make a decision without every possible outcome flashing in front of his eyes, endless possibilities spreading out like some nightmarish probability tree, complete with percentages...

_Hit the floor at that angle and you’ll break a wrist. Zach misses that shot and there’s an 80% chance you’ll start a fire, a 37% chance the shrapnel will hit one of you, the healing time of a second degree burn is approximately three weeks…_

It’s because of that newfound caution, that sense of potential danger all around them, that in the weeks after the alien invasion he continues to eavesdrop on the scientists and military in the base with them. Even now that they’ve proved their worth and been officially hired by DETIA, he can’t help but worry.

_There are still innumerable people more qualified than the current team. Eventually they’ll find a way to take these pieces off, and even if they don’t, amputation still presents a viable option…_

Maybe he’s just paranoid. The others aren’t worried at all. But each night before he sleeps he listens in on the private meetings that are held on the floor just above them. They think they’re very clever, holding them at night and with none of Lazer Team present - they haven’t realised that Woody can hear, the Helmet letting him catch everything they say as clearly as if he was in the room with them.

Tonight, he’s alone in their dormitory. The others are still all out in the dining hall - he left early, feeling tired after the day’s intense training session - and he’s lying on his bunk, staring up at the ceiling, eavesdropping as usual.

What he hears today makes him pause.

_“They’re making progress.”_ It’s Emory’s voice, defending them as usual.

“ _Not fast enough!”_

_“They’re trying hard.”_

_“Trying isn’t enough. Physically… the younger one has potential. He’s fit and fast, and can be trained. But Hagan and Mendoza… they’re past their peak.”_

_“So are all of us,”_ Emory snaps, rather irritably. “ _I’d like to see you put on that suit and do better! In any case, the science division doesn’t think we have any other option. The pieces are genetically bonded to them. Even if we can find a way to physically remove them - which will be necessary for maintenance and hygiene purposes, if nothing else - they still won’t work for anyone other than these four men. Hagan and Mendoza are hardly on their deathbeds. I’m telling you, they’ll be fine.”_

_“What about Johnson?”_ another of the men asks.

“ _His role isn’t nearly as physical - which is a damn good thing, considering how much he struggles in some of the simulations,”_ one of the scientists who conducts their training programs cuts in. “ _He does his job with the Helmet well enough, but it would be hard not to. It seems to do most of the work for him. If you took it off his head he’d be as stupid as ever - you could put it on a monkey and it would serve the same purpose, most likely.”_

A scatter of laughter from some of the others - Emory doesn’t laugh along with them, but Woody barely notices. His chest feels tight, and his cheeks flush hot with embarrassment. He can’t bring himself to listen to any more, and mentally retreats from the room upstairs.

_Ignore them._

He can’t. It’s been such an abrupt shift since he put on this damn thing, and he’s constantly aware of how the rest of DETIA look at them - hell, how they look at each other, especially when their teamwork doesn’t _quite_ go according to plan. And he can hardly fault them - he’s nothing special, after all. He was probably the worst person the Helmet could be given to - sometimes, he still struggles keeping up with all the information it gives him; reads out words he doesn’t quite know the meanings to, or is clumsy in changing its settings and abilities.

Hell, a monkey probably _could_ do a better job.

He bites his lip, and absently tunes in to the dining hall instead - he mostly just means to check if the others are still there, or if they’re about to come back into the dorm - but the second he listens in, he catches a single line of conversation and freezes.

“ _No one cares about Woody, anyway! I’m serious!”_

It’s Zach’s voice, loud and brash as always, and Woody feels himself go cold all over. He retreats immediately, sitting up on his bunk and wrapping his arms around himself, the words running over and over in his head.

_No one cares about Woody anyway._

_No one cares about Woody anyway._

_No one cares about Woody_.

The Helmet is throwing information at him, his own vital stats - _body temperature falling, heartbeat rising, minor symptoms of anxiety and stress-_

He ignores them, squeezing his eyes shut, swallowing the lump that’s suddenly risen in his throat. 

The words were a shock, more than anything. A nasty, nasty shock.

Once, he wouldn’t have been surprised. No one cared about Woody Johnson the water boy, after all. He couldn’t even do his damn job right. He was used to people not even acknowledging him, forgetting his name, to being _invisible_ \- and back then, he’d never cared.

But nowadays… maybe it was how the Helmet had made things easier for him to understand, or how for the first time in his life, he felt like he was actually doing something that mattered. But he’d thought they were all starting to get along - to be _friends_ , a proper team.

It all becomes clear now.

Here he’s been enjoying himself, thinking he finally has a place to fit in, but clearly he’s mistaken - has just been making a fool of himself this entire time.

The fourth member of the team isn’t Woody, it’s just the fucking helmet. You could stick anyone in here and they’d do the same job. He’s just the mouthpiece needed to blurt out whatever information the team needs at any given moment.

His pounding heart and shaking hands settle into nothing but a cold numbness. He doesn’t want to wait for the others to come back in - doesn’t think he can bear to look at them and know what they really think of him now, how _wrong_ he’s been. Closing his eyes, he rolls over to face the wall and tries to block everything out, escaping into sleep.

 

* * *

 

Woody nearly wishes what he’d heard was nothing but a bad dream.

Sadly, he doesn’t even have the comfort of pretending. The Helmet lets him know perfectly well the second he wakes up and thinks about it that it was a very, very real memory, recorded at exactly 9:48pm on Saturday evening, if he’d like to replay it (not in a million years, thank you very much).

He can’t meet Herman’s eyes as he clambers down out of bed, even when the other man grunts something vaguely resembling a “good morning” at him - can’t bring himself to laugh when Zach tries to wind Hagan up by filming him snoring before rousing him by flicking drops of water in his ear from the bottle he keeps by his bedside. 

He feels quiet and awkward and out of place - like he doesn’t fit in here - like anything he says will only make it even more apparent that he’s the odd one out, the one no one _wants_ , who should be kept in the background and not speak unless he has something useful to say.

It’s a Sunday, but they still have work to do. Woody follows the others out to the training field in silence, but this isn’t unusual - everyone’s grumpy this early in the morning, even if they should be used to it by now.

Still. The biting morning air clears their heads, their thin t-shirts doing little to keep out the autumn chill. Before long the others are winding each other up as usual, joking around as the scientists prepare the simulation - various things are being shot at them, and they have to dodge and block and shoot back at the pop-up targets that appear around the field. It’s an exercise they’ve been doing for weeks now. Woody had tracked their progress, been proud at how each time they improved just a little - now, he doesn’t feel quite as accomplished.

“Woody? You feeling okay?”

He snaps to attention and realises the simulation has started. He’d been running on autopilot, following Zach around and guiding his aim, pausing occasionally to call everyone else back together so they can do some of the tricks that require more than one piece of the suit - barely registering when words leave his mouth in a flat monotone, little more than “Herman, over here!” or “Everyone, back near me!”

He shakes himself, and realises the others were laughing and exchanging banter that he can’t even remember now, although it must’ve been loud enough for him to hear - Herman and Zach are exchanging amused glances and raising their eyebrows at him, and he has the uncomfortable feeling that maybe someone made a joke about him while he wasn’t listening.

“I’m perfectly fine, Hagan,” he replies, quietly. “My vitals are all in order - an elevated heartbeat, yes, but that’s a sign that the physical activity we are doing is within a range where calories-”

“Alright, alright,” Hagan says, and Woody snaps his mouth shut.

_Shut up, you idiot. He doesn’t care. It was a yes or no question._

He turns away, overly conscious of Hagan’s eyes following him, and tries hard to focus again on the task at hand - but he can’t help it, now, all the others are _watching_ him, and he’s so distracted that he doesn’t register the blaring alarm of the Helmet as something flies towards him.

A tennis ball hits him in the stomach with such force that it makes him gag as it knocks the wind out of him and sends him stumbling back. Hagan’s there a second later, crouched over him and shield raised as more projectiles ricochet off it - Woody, dazed, tries to catch his breath, but it’s a struggle. His stomach hurts.

“Shit, Woody. Are you alright?” Hagan asks again, reaching down to help him up. His face is soft and concerned, but Woody barely notices.

_You fucked it up,_ is all he can think. _You had one bloody job and you can’t even do that right!_

“Woody?” Herman’s zipped up by his side too. “Did it get you in the balls? I told you, man, you gotta start wearing a cup. We can all see your dick clear as day. Literally, every morning, we get out here and it’s the first thing that greets me. No one else’s dick is as prominent as that. I’m not sure if yours is abnormally large or what, but these suits hide _nothing,_ and yours makes a damn fine target-”

“Got me in the stomach,” Woody wheezes, and Herman nods sagely.

“Alright. Still. My point stands. If there’s one thing you wanna protect, it’s that.”

“Focus on the simulation!” one of the scientists yells, from behind the protection of a nearby chain-link fence - but Zach’s already taken over, yelling wildly as he spins in a circle and fires at all the targets. Without Woody helping him aim, it’s a bit hit-and-miss (literally), and Herman screeches and ducks under the protection of Hagan’s shield. Under the onslaught of laser bolts, the targets have soon all fallen, and Woody sees the scientists call time on the simulation.

Hagan’s still staring at him. He grabs Woody’s arms and heaves him to his feet - his hands linger a moment, brushing dirt off him as he scans him up and down, something too scrutinising in it. But Woody shakes him off - he can already tell that their scores on this test are down; they’ve barely passed, and the scientists are frowning over their clipboards, and it’s _your fault, your fault, your fault_.

The rest of the day doesn’t go very well. There’s usually something fun about training, nowadays - about seeing their improvements, and completing tasks, and pretending to be on various alien planets. But none of it’s enjoyable today. It feels like he’s just playing a role on a stage, and not doing it very well - reading out scripted lines without passion, like he’s the only one who’s not actually real. By the end of it all he’s just exhausted, and not the good sort of exhausted that he usually feels, where he can tell he’s worn himself out but it means he’s getting stronger, fitter, _better_.

It’s a Sunday - the day when they finish early and get the evening off. Hagan and Zach normally go back into town to see Mindy and their other friends; Herman either stays on base or goes out to sneakily drink, since DETIA doesn’t let him here - but this evening Herman mentioned something about everyone meeting up out the front to go into town together and watch the football game after they finish their individual training sessions. Zach had complained very loudly about how he wasn’t allowed to play anymore, and that had started Hagan off about how he really should be trying to finish school, and Woody had watched in silence, his heart pounding, because it’s clearly meant to be some sort of team activity with a dinner afterwards and once he wouldn’t have blinked twice, but now he’s not sure if he’s invited.

_If you are, it’s just out of politeness_ , he thinks - _no one wants you there, anyway._

He goes off to do his own training with the scientists, running calculations to test the Helmet’s abilities, trying out the various functions, studying more about what they can do when they use the pieces together, and once it’s all finished he goes and takes a shower and heads back to the room where he lies alone on his bed in the darkness.

It’s about time for the others to be meeting to head back to town, he thinks, but can’t bring himself to get up, closing his eyes and instead running back over the simulations they did today, working out where they - _he_ \- needs to do better.

It feels like a lot of time passes. He can’t tell, lost in thought. When the door opens, he jumps a little, then turns, expecting someone from DETIA with news or orders.

But it’s Zach lingering in the doorway, brows furrowed.

“Dude,” he says, “There you are! Aren’t you coming?”

“What?” Woody stutters out, sitting up. Zach marches into the room and clambers up the ladder of the bunk bed. All Woody can do is stare at him.

“We’re all waiting out there! I’ve been sent all over the place looking for you - we thought you were still in training, or at the showers. Not sure why Herman didn’t go, he’d’ve been faster.” Zach’s out of breath, Woody realises absently, like he really has been running around. “Well?”

“Well what?” Woody repeats, still not quite sure what’s going on.

“Well, are you coming into town with us or what?” Zach demands.

Woody opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Zach stares at him impatiently - then his face softens, and he leans forward, peering closely at Woody behind the Helmet’s visor.

“Are you sick?” he asks. “You’ve been weird all day.”

“My vital signs are perfectly normal,” Woody says, automatically. And then, “What do you mean, weird?”

“Like, quiet and shit. I dunno. Not your usual British, squawking self.”

Woody looks away, unsure quite how to respond to that. He expects Zach to snap at him, or just leave - expects him to be as impatient and self-absorbed as usual. But Zach just keeps staring at him, and finally Woody swallows.

“Thank you for coming to check on me,” he says. “But you can go to town without me. You don’t need to invite me just because you feel sorry for me.”

Clearly, that’s what’s going on here. After all, it’d be a bit obvious if just the three of them went off without him. But he _sees_ Zach do a double take.

“What?” he asks. “Where the hell did you get that idea?”

“It’s quite clear. Since we’re such a small team, it’d be conspicuous if one person didn’t come along. But it’s alright, I don’t mind.” That part is a lie, and Zach seems to notice.

“No, I mean where did you get the idea that we don’t want you to come along? That’s not true.”

“Then why did you…”

It comes out without him really meaning it to, and he trails off, but Zach rounds on him.

“Why did I what?”

“I heard you,” Woody admits, a little embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping. “Last night, in the cafeteria.” And then, at Zach’s blank look, “ _No one cares about Woody, anyway_.”

He expects Zach to chastise him for eavesdropping, but Zach just stares. It seems to take a moment for him to recall exactly why he’d said that, which is fairly puzzling, but finally his eyes widen.

“Oh. Shit, is that the only part of the conversation you heard? Dude, no, we were talking about how the media keeps trying to stalk us now that we’re like famous and shit. And like, naturally I’m the one they write about the most because I am the awesomest, the most handsome, the most eligible bachelor, and also they can find out the most about me since _basically_ my entire life is on Facebook. And Hagan was getting all worked up about the shit they might dig up on the rest of you guys but legit, Herman’s already notorious in our town and Hagan’s old so he’s boring, and since from the outside it looks like what you do is kinda just stand around during battles, no one’s as interested in you. No offence.”

Woody stares at him, struggling to take this in.

“So I didn’t mean _we_ don’t care about you,” Zach continues, “‘cause of course _we_ do. I meant, like, the general public. The adoring masses. The DailyMail. You know, all that shit.”

“All that shit,” Woody repeats, softly. He shakes himself. “But you’re right, Zach, they don’t. I’m not even that necessary to the team. The Helmet does all the work. Before that I was just-”

“Just what? We were all _just_. Just a drunk miscreant who likes to set off illegal fireworks. Just a boring traffic cop. Except me, I’ve always been amazing,” he preens, and Woody manages to huff out a laugh. “But seriously, you reckon anyone else could just join our team and we’d work with them? Like shit, even if one of those DETIA scientists had put on that helmet, we wouldn’t have been able to get along with them. And they might not have been as creative as you - remember when we made that enormous bubble with the Shield and kicked Adam’s ass? And he was all like,” here he adopts a rather strange imitation of Adam’s voice that sounds more like a cartoon mouse, “ _That’s impossible! You can’t do that with the Shield!_ Like, _you_ did that. No one else. And the British accent makes us look all foreign and mysterious.”

“Right,” Woody says, rather bemused.

“Like JARVIS, dude.”

“I… okay?” 

Zach claps him heartily on the shoulder, fortunately with the hand that isn’t trapped inside a giant metal gun. His eyes are blazing and genuine when Woody glances over at him.

“Besides!” he declares, “We like having you around!”

“Really?” Woody can’t help but ask, tentatively.

“Yeah, of course.” Zach grins at him, and after a moment Woody can’t help but smile tentatively back. Zach doesn’t lie about stuff like that, he knows. If he doesn’t care about something, he won’t pretend to. If he does like something, he’ll proclaim it loudly and fondly. And part of Woody, even after all that’s happened, can’t help but feel a small thrill at their school’s star football player and one of the most popular jocks announcing so readily that he _likes_ him.

“Now come on,” Zach insists, tugging at his arm. “The others are all waiting!”

Woody follows him out of the building and into the front drive, where Herman and Hagan are waiting in the car. He lays his insecurities aside - because he knows Zach, and Herman, and they don’t pretend about stuff like this. He misinterpreted what he heard his team, his _friends_ saying, and even if DETIA genuinely doubted him - well, DETIA doubts _all_ of them, has since the start, but all Lazer Team has done since is prove them wrong.

Herman honks the horn furiously when he notices them, and Woody can’t help but smile.

They didn’t leave without him. They came to look for him instead, and he doesn’t need the Helmet and its help reading body language and tone to tell that they definitely care after all.

**Author's Note:**

> [Join me writing Lazer Team fics each week! <3](http://whalehuntingboyfriends.tumblr.com/post/149931537439/lazer-team-weekly-prompt-challenge)


End file.
